Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

characters.

The first Disney comics were newspaper strips appearing from 1930 on (with the exception of Mr. George's Wife, a primitive comic strip by Walt Disney made in the early 1920s). In 1940, Western Publishing

Western Publishing

Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company was a Racine, Wisconsin firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Western Publishing also produced children's books and family-related entertainment products as Golden Books Family Entertainment...

Uncle Scrooge is a comic book with the stingy Scrooge McDuck "the richest duck in the world" as the main character. The series also featured Donald Duck and his nephews as supporting characters. The first 70 issues mostly consisted of stories written and drawn by Carl Barks, the creator of Scrooge...

. In recent decades, Disney comics have seen a lack of popularity in their country of origin.

In the rest of the world Disney comics have been very successful, especially in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Comic strips

The first Disney comics appeared in daily newspapers, syndicated by King Features

King Features Syndicate

King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

with production done in-house by a Disney comic strip department at the studio. The Mickey Mouse daily comic strip began on January 13, 1930, featuring Mickey as an optimistic, adventure-seeking young mouse. A Sunday

Sunday comics

Sunday comics is the commonly accepted term for the full-color comic strip section carried in most American newspapers. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies....

A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.Toppers usually were drawn...

Bucky Bug is a fictional character, created by The Walt Disney Company. He first appeared in the initial Silly Symphonies comic strip; he was the first Disney character to debut in comics...

, the first Disney character to originate in the comics. It subsequently printed adaptations of some of the Symphony cartoons, several extended periods of stories involving Pluto

Pluto (Disney)

Pluto, also called Pluto the Pup, is a cartoon character created in 1930 by Walt Disney Productions. He is a light brown , medium-sized, short-haired dog. Unlike Goofy, Pluto is not anthropomorphic beyond some characteristics such as facial expression...

Little Hiawatha is a 1937 animated cartoon produced by Walt Disney.-Synopsis:Over opening narration, Little Hiawatha is seen paddling his canoe down a river—at one point backwards—on his way to hunt game. Upon reaching land, he steps out and immediately falls down a hidden hole in the water,...

Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the story The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. It is the second film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, and it was made after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and was released to theaters by...

Donald Duck, a cartoon character created by the Walt Disney Company, is today the star of dozens of comic-book and comic-strip stories published each month around the world.-Early debut:...

made his first comics appearance in the Silly Symphony adaptation of the 1934 Disney short The Wise Little Hen

The Wise Little Hen

The Wise Little Hen is a Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies cartoon, based on the fairy tale The Little Red Hen. This cartoon marked the debut of Donald Duck. Donald and his friend Peter Pig try to avoid work by faking stomach aches until Mrs. Hen teaches them the value of labor. This cartoon was...

(Sept. 16, 1934-Dec. 16, 1934). As Donald's popularity grew, he became the star of the Silly Symphony strip for an extended run (August 1936 to December 1937), and then got his own daily strip starting on February 7, 1938. A Donald Sunday strip was begun December 10, 1939.

An oddity is in the 1930s a Disney strip was done outside the purview of the Strip Dept. for a national audience. It was created by Fred Spencer

Fred Spencer

Fred Spencer was an American animator who worked at Walt Disney Productions. He was considered an authority on Donald Duck and wrote an influential analysis of the character.-Career:...

, an animator at the studio. Entitled "Mickey Mouse Chapter", it appeared in the newsletter of Demolay beginning with its Dec. 1932 issue. This was a two tier black and white strip depicting happenings in the Demolay Chapter formed by Mickey and his barnyard friends. Spencer and Disney were both members of Demolay. How long the strip ran is unknown. Spencer died in a car accident in 1938.

The Silly Symphony Sunday-only strip ended July 12, 1942. This was replaced with an adaptation of Bambi

Bambi

Bambi is a 1942 American animated film directed by David Hand , produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten...

(no longer a topper to the Mickey Sunday strip), after the conclusion of which (beginning Oct. 11, 1942) a José Carioca

José Carioca

José Carioca is a Disney cartoon character drawn as an anthropomorphized parrot from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil . José was created in 1943 for the movie Saludos Amigos as a friend of Donald Duck, described by Time as "a dapper Brazilian parrot, who is as superior to Donald Duck as the Duck was to...

Sunday only strip was launched which ran until it in turn was replaced by Uncle Remus in 1945.

Initially Floyd Gottfredson besides doing the Mickey comic strip oversaw the Disney comic strip department from 1930 to 1945, then Frank Reilly was brought in to administer the burgeoning department from January 1946 to 1975. Greg Crosby headed the department from 1979 to 1989.

Besides the strips described above the other Disney strips distributed over the years included:

Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales is an American Sunday comic strip, which ran in newspapers from 13 July 1952 until 15 February 1987. Each story adapted a different Disney film, such as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, or Davy Crockett. Most stories ran for 13 weeks...

The True-Life Adventures series is a collection of short subject documentary films produced by Walt Disney Productions roughly between the years 1948 and 1960. The film series was exposed in 1982 by the CBC newsmagazine The Fifth Estate for Animal Cruelty and faking nature scenes. It is also...

Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...

and His Friends [pantomime aimed at an international audience] (September 1, 1958-March 17, 1962).

Winnie the Pooh is a comic strip based on the characters created by A.A. Milne & E.H. Shepard which ran from June 19, 1978 until April 2, 1988....

(June 19, 1978-April 2, 1988)

Gummi Bears (1986–1989).

For the first eight months Scamp had continuity and was written by Ward Greene, the King Features editor whose short story and novelization contributed to the development of the storyline for Lady and the Tramp

Lady and the Tramp

Lady and the Tramp is a 1955 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released to theaters on June 22, 1955, by Buena Vista Distribution. The fifteenth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, it was the first animated feature filmed in the CinemaScope widescreen...

. Advance publicity for the strip noted Greene's participation and the strip carried the byline "By Ward Greene". Disney historian Jim Fanning notes Scamp likely is "the only strip written by the original author of the work from which it sprang".

Beginning in 1960 a special daily strip with a holiday theme utilizing the Disney characters was offered each year through 1987. It generally ran for three weeks with the concluding strip appearing on December 25. These were unique in that they in some cases showcased the crossover of Disney characters that otherwise rarely interacted (e.g. the Big Bad Wolf and the fairies from Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty (1959 film)

Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the fairy tale "La Belle au bois dormant" by Charles Perrault...

). The tradition was revived in the mid 1990s to publicize contemporary Disney feature animated films: Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)

Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The thirtieth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and the third film of the Disney Renaissance period...

Pocahontas is the 33rd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and was originally released to selected theaters on June 16, 1995 by Walt Disney Pictures...

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1996 American animated drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released to theaters on June 21, 1996 by Walt Disney Pictures. The thirty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, the film is inspired by Victor Hugo's novel of...

The Little Mermaid is a 1989 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the film was originally released to theaters on November 14, 1989 and is the twenty-eighth film in...

United Media is a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It syndicates 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core business is the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association...

Arthur Floyd Gottfredson was an American cartoonist best known for his defining work on the Mickey Mouse comic strip. He has probably had the same impact on the Mickey Mouse comics as Carl Barks had on the Donald Duck comics...

Manuel Gonzales was a Spanish-American Disney comics artist. He emigrated from Spain to the USA in 1918 via Ellis Island, and was employed at the Walt Disney Studios in September 1936, where he initially worked as an "in-betweener" on the motion picture, Snow White.Later working in the comic strip...

Riley A. Thomson, Jr. was an American animator and comics artist who spent most of his career working with Walt Disney films and characters. He directed six Disney short films including The Nifty Nineties and Symphony Hour.-Career:Thomson began his career in 1935 at Leon Schlesinger Productions ...

Carson Van Osten is an American comics creator and musician.Van Osten studyed at the Philadelphia College of Art. In 1966, he played in the band Woody's Truck Stop, before forming the rock group Nazz with Todd Rundgren in 1967. Van Osten was the band's bass guitarist. He quit The Nazz in...

Daan Jippes is a cartoonist, who has worked with Disney and other comics. He is admired by his fans for his lively emulation of Carl Barks' drawing style, and was therefore chosen by Egmont to redraw some old Junior Woodchucks stories from the 1970s, originally written by Carl Barks and drawn by...

Anthony Joseph Strobl was an American comics artist and animator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Cleveland School of Art from 1933–37, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who actually got some help from Strobl creating Superman...

Merrill De Maris is a writer who worked on Disney Comic Strips for King Features Syndicate.De Maris helped Floyd Gottfredson with many of his early Mickey Mouse comic strips – De Maris wrote the 1939 multi-month Phantom Blot for one...

Robert Louis Karp was an American comics writer. He began working for the Walt Disney Company in the 1930s, and from 1938 to 1974, he wrote the scripts for the daily Donald Duck newspaper strips. These were illustrated by Al Taliaferro and by Frank Grundeen after Taliaferro's death in 1969.Bob...

Floyd E. Norman is an American animator who worked on the Walt Disney animated features Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, and The Jungle Book, along with various animated short projects at Disney in the late '50s and early '60s.- Biography :Norman had his start as an assistant to comic...

(Mickey Mouse, holiday). Norman in an article listed the writers working in the comic strip department in the 1980s and mentions Cal Howard, Del Connell, Bill Berg, Don Ferguson, Tom Yakutis and Bob Foster and notes that their boss, Greg Crosby, had gotten his start as a writer for the strips before moving into management.

In 1990 the Donald strip was discontinued and Disney closed its comic strip department. The Mickey strip continued, supervised by King Features with Floyd Norman as the writer and Rick
Hoover as the artist. Norman convinced the syndicate to allow him to drop the gag a day format in favor of adventure continuities of up to four weeks, much in the style of the classic Gottfredson era. By 1993 the strip was running in only 30 newspapers and by mutual agreement of Disney and King Features it ended.

Currently reprints of Merrie Menagerie are a regular feature of Disney Newsreel, a bi-weekly magazine for Disney employees in Southern California. Disney's fan-oriented website D23

D23 (Disney)

D23 is the first official Disney fan club for dedicated fans, sponsored by the Walt Disney Company. The Charter Year of D23 was in 2009.-History:...

daily posts a installment of the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Scamp strips. Among the regular features of the quarterly Disney Twenty-Three magazine for D23 members is "The Funny Pages", a section reprinting classic Disney comics strips.

Creators Syndicate is an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers. It was founded in 1987 by Richard S. Newcombe, and is based in Los Angeles. Creators was one of the first syndicates to allow its clients to maintain creative control of their material...

has offered reprints of the Winnie the Pooh strip as part of a "classics" package. Additionally reruns of the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic strips still appear in some newspapers throughout the world.

Comic books

Notable American Disney comic book writers and artists include Carl Barks

Carl Barks

Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...

Anthony Joseph Strobl was an American comics artist and animator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Cleveland School of Art from 1933–37, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who actually got some help from Strobl creating Superman...

William Van Horn has been a Disney comics artist and writer since 1988. He draws mostly Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and he has also written and/or illustrated stories based on the animated series DuckTales...

Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...

Donald Duck is a comic book starring the Disney character Donald Duck and published by various publishers since 1952. Initially, the series was a "try out" magazine that featured Four Color Comics characters that didn't have their own titles...

Uncle Scrooge is a comic book with the stingy Scrooge McDuck "the richest duck in the world" as the main character. The series also featured Donald Duck and his nephews as supporting characters. The first 70 issues mostly consisted of stories written and drawn by Carl Barks, the creator of Scrooge...

Publishers

Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company was a Racine, Wisconsin firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Western Publishing also produced children's books and family-related entertainment products as Golden Books Family Entertainment...

Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and One Shots, was a long-running American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962...

title. The Four Color books reprinted a variety of newspaper strip material, and issue #4 featured a selection of Donald Duck strips. The Disney reprints were a big seller, and encouraged Western to convert Mickey Mouse Magazine [third series] (which had included comics along with text stories, poems, jokes, puzzles, games and full-page illustrations) into a full-fledged comic book, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories

, whose first issue was dated October 1940 and by the mid-1950s was the best selling comic book in America with a circulation hovering around three million a month (with the highest level reached being 3,038,000 for the Sept. 1953 issue). In addition many releases in its popular Big Little Books

Big Little Books

The Big Little Books, first published during 1932 by the Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin, were small, compact books designed with a captioned illustration opposite each page of text...

series adapted Disney comic book and comic strip stories.

By the late-1950s relations between Dell and Western had become strained. Former Western writer Mark Evanier

Mark Evanier

Mark Stephen Evanier is an American comic book and television writer, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of...

states part of this was due to "... a small battle going on between the two companies over the ownership of properties in non-licensed comics." Eventually in 1962 Western ended the partnership and continued their comic book line under the Gold Key Comics

Gold Key Comics

Gold Key Comics was an imprint of Western Publishing created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984.-History:...

label. Comic book historian Joe Torcivia has dubbed the mid-1960s "... a period of creativity for Western Publishing’s Disney line not seen since its formation, and never seen again."

By the 1970s Disney comics were undergoing a steep decline in circulation, with newsstand distribution discontinued in 1981. Western thereafter released its comics under the Whitman label, distributing them to candy stores and other outlets in bags containing three comics and also eventually distributed them to the emerging network of comic book stores. Western ceased publishing comics in 1984.

Gladstone Publishing was an American company that published Disney comics from 1986 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1998. The company had its origins as a subsidiary of "Another Rainbow", a company formed by Bruce Hamilton and Russ Cochran to publish the Carl Barks Library and produce limited edition...

Another Rainbow Publishing is a company dedicated to the re-publication and greater recognition of the work of Carl Barks that was created in 1981 by Bruce Hamilton and Russ Cochran. Its name references Barks's saying that there would be "always another rainbow" for his character Scrooge McDuck,...

dedicated solely to Carl Barks). Impressed by Gladstone's unanticipated success, Disney revoked their license in 1990 to publish the comics themselves by the subsidiary of Disney Comics

Disney Comics

Disney Comics was a comic book publishing company operated by The Walt Disney Company which ran from 1990 to 1993. In the USA, Disney only licensed their comic books to other publishers prior to 1990...

and a large expansion was planned, however following the Disney Implosion in 1991 Disney gradually returned licensing to Gladstone again (for the classic characters) and Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

(for the modern characters). Respectively, reprints of classic Barks stories were licensed to Gladstone again from 1991, while it took Gladstone until the demise of Disney Comics in 1993 to regain a license also for other stories containing the classic characters. Gladstone from then on remained publishing Disney comics until 1998.

In 2003, after a couple of years' hiatus, regular publication was restarted by Gemstone Publishing

Gemstone Publishing

Gemstone Publishing is a U.S. company that publishes comic books and collectors' guides. The company was formed by Diamond Comic Distributors President and Chief Executive Officer Stephen A. Geppi. Gemstone published licensed Disney comic books from June 2003 until November 2008. The company has...

Uncle Scrooge is a comic book with the stingy Scrooge McDuck "the richest duck in the world" as the main character. The series also featured Donald Duck and his nephews as supporting characters. The first 70 issues mostly consisted of stories written and drawn by Carl Barks, the creator of Scrooge...

, but the license was not renewed with the last releases dated Nov. 2008.

Gargoyles is an American animated series created by Greg Weisman. It was produced by Greg Weisman and Frank Paur and aired from October 24, 1994 to February 15, 1997. Gargoyles is known for its dark tone, complex story arcs and melodrama...

The Muppet Show is a British television programme produced by American puppeteer Jim Henson and featuring Muppets. After two pilot episodes were produced in 1974 and 1975, the show premiered on 5 September 1976 and five series were produced until 15 March 1981, lasting 120 episodes...

The Incredibles is a 2004 American computer-animated action-comedy superhero film about a family of superheroes who are forced to hide their powers. It was written and directed by Brad Bird, a former director and executive consultant of The Simpsons, and was produced by Pixar and distributed by...

Cars is a 2006 American animated family film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Joe Ranft. It is the seventh Disney·Pixar feature film, and Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney...

). Boom now also has the license for the classic characters, and has been publishing comic books with them starting in 2009. Although cancelling two titles priorly published by Gladstone and Gemstone (Donald Duck Adventures and Uncle $crooge Adventures), Boom! expanded their Disney portfolio in 2010-'11 by launching three new titles based upon the 1990s Disney Afternoon

The Disney Afternoon

The Disney Afternoon was a created-for-syndication two-hour television programming block which aired from September 10, 1990, until Fall 1999. At that time, it was taken out of syndication, and a new Disney weekday afternoon block was started on UPN. The Disney Afternoon was produced by The Walt...

DarkWing Duck is an American animated television series produced by The Walt Disney Company that ran from 1991–1992 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. It featured the eponymous anthropomorphic duck superhero whose alter ego is mild-mannered...

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Created by Tad Stones and Alan Zaslove, it featured the established Disney characters Chip 'n' Dale in a new setting. The series premiered on the Disney Channel on March 4, 1989,...

DuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic book series, it premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on November 28, 1990 with a total of four seasons and 100 episodes...

), to surprising success. However, in August 2011, it was announced that Disney was to end licensing to Boom! in October of that year, and would team up with Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

instead, leaving the future of comics including their classic characters as well as those from the Disney Afternoon format uncertain.

Phineas and Ferb is an American animated television comedy series. Originally broadcast as a preview on August 17, 2007, on Disney Channel, the series follows Phineas Flynn and his English stepbrother Ferb Fletcher on summer vacation. Every day the boys embark on some grand new project, which...

, featuring comic stories based on the show. Between 1999 and 2005, Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...

published occasional adaptations of Disney's new movies.

Disney Studio Program

The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

had a unit producing comic book stories exclusively for foreign consumption, in response to complaints of foreign comic book licensees that Western Publishing

Western Publishing

Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company was a Racine, Wisconsin firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Western Publishing also produced children's books and family-related entertainment products as Golden Books Family Entertainment...

was producing less stories they could reprint plus their voracious need for material (some European titles are weekly) was using up the available inventory of stories. George Sherman

George Sherman (comics)

George Sherman was a publicist for foreign markets and then head of the Publications Department at the Disney Studios. Sherman's daughter has described him as "a writer at heart but worked for Disney as a day job."...

, head of Disney’s Publications Department at the time, hired Tom Golberg to run the program. Sherman noted the purpose of the program was “We [will] use new characters in our foreign comics, characters that we don’t have [in the USA].... to bring out facets of existing characters, [and to] give the stories more variety.” Tony Strobl

Tony Strobl

Anthony Joseph Strobl was an American comics artist and animator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Cleveland School of Art from 1933–37, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who actually got some help from Strobl creating Superman...

Carson Van Osten is an American comics creator and musician.Van Osten studyed at the Philadelphia College of Art. In 1966, he played in the band Woody's Truck Stop, before forming the rock group Nazz with Todd Rundgren in 1967. Van Osten was the band's bass guitarist. He quit The Nazz in...

Romano Scarpa was one of the most famous Italian creators of Disney comics.-Biography:Growing up in Venice he developed a particular love for American cartoons and Disney comics, that, at the time, were published in the big format of the Topolino Giornale which was then printing now classic Floyd...

Floyd E. Norman is an American animator who worked on the Walt Disney animated features Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, and The Jungle Book, along with various animated short projects at Disney in the late '50s and early '60s.- Biography :Norman had his start as an assistant to comic...

Richard Timothy "Dick" Kinney was an American animator and comic book writer. His comic book work was mostly on Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck stories. He was the writer who, along with artist Al Hubbard, created Fethry Duck and Hard Haid Moe...

Diana J. Gabaldon is an American author of Mexican-American and English ancestry. Gabaldon is the author of the Outlander Series. Her books they contain elements of romantic fiction, historical fiction, mystery, adventure, and science fiction.-Early life and science career:Diana J. Gabaldon was...

Mark Stephen Evanier is an American comic book and television writer, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of...

were among those who at some point did scripts for it. From the late 1970s on, the Jaime Diaz Studios of Argentina drew most of the stories. In a few instances studio program stories were reprinted in the United States in promotional giveaways of Gulf Oil

Gulf Oil

Gulf Oil was a major global oil company from the 1900s to the 1980s. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies...

John D. Rockerduck is a fictional character from the Duck universe. He is one of Scrooge McDuck's main rivals. His name is a play on that of John D. Rockefeller, the American capitalist and philanthropist...

#255, Dec. 1961) while the progam subsequently created numerous stories with the Scrooge McDuck rival and helped refine him (along with stories by Brazilian and Italian Disney comic book
licensees).

Domestic printing of studio program stories ceased being a unique event starting in the late 1980s as the Disney comics published by Gladstone

Gladstone Publishing

Gladstone Publishing was an American company that published Disney comics from 1986 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1998. The company had its origins as a subsidiary of "Another Rainbow", a company formed by Bruce Hamilton and Russ Cochran to publish the Carl Barks Library and produce limited edition...

Gemstone Publishing is a U.S. company that publishes comic books and collectors' guides. The company was formed by Diamond Comic Distributors President and Chief Executive Officer Stephen A. Geppi. Gemstone published licensed Disney comic books from June 2003 until November 2008. The company has...

have featured them on a regular basis, along with reprints from Gold Key

Gold Key Comics

Gold Key Comics was an imprint of Western Publishing created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984.-History:...

Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

Disney Comics was a comic book publishing company operated by The Walt Disney Company which ran from 1990 to 1993. In the USA, Disney only licensed their comic books to other publishers prior to 1990...

Disney Adventures was a children's entertainment and educational magazine published ten times per year by The Walt Disney Company. It should not be confused with the Disney Magazine...

.

Denmark

Danish publisher Egmont (previously Gutenberghus) has one of the largest productions of Disney comics in the world. This production is not only for Denmark proper, but nearly identical magazines are being published simultaneously every week for all the big Nordic countries

Nordic countries

The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...

, with much material also exported elsewhere. The Danes started publishing their own series in the early 1960s, however, a large part of Egmont's production have been made by foreign artists such as Vicar and Daniel Branca

Daniel Branca

Daniel Branca was an Argentine comic artist.Born in Buenos Aires, Branca got interested in comics and arts at an early age, and started his career working for a children's magazine at 14. At 16, Branca found employment as assistant animator for an advertising company...

. The Scandinavian countries are among the countries in which Donald Duck

Donald Duck

Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...

Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...

.

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

since his first appearance in 1929, no regular comic books were produced until the 1950s. Initially, a few comic strips were published in some German newspapers, e.g. the Kölner Illustrierte Zeitung. The only regular publication in German language was the Swiss Micky Maus Zeitung published by Bollmann in 1937, but it lasted only for 18 issues. As the Nazi government did not like comic books at all, in the Third Reich there were almost no Disney comic books.

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

The Egmont Group is a media corporation founded and rooted in Copenhagen, Denmark. The business area of Egmont has traditionally been magazine publishing but has over the years evolved to comprise media generally....

(then Gutenberghus) started in September 1951 the monthly publication Micky Maus, a format similar to Walt Disney's Comics & Stories. From the start it featured stories by Carl Barks, translated by chief editor Dr. Erika Fuchs

Erika Fuchs

Erika Fuchs, née Petri , was a German translator.Born into a well to do large family, Fuchs spent most of her childhood and youth in Belgard in Pomerania, where in 1921 she was the first girl to be admitted to the boys' Gymnasium - she passed her Abitur exam there in 1926...

. The comic book was published on a bimonthly basis 1956/57 and from 1958 on it changed into a weekly. Renamed Micky Maus Magazin it is still published today from the now Berlin located Egmont Ehapa publishing company and thus is the longest running German comic book. In its heyday (early 1990s) its weekly circulation number rose up to one million copies. Since then it dropped down to ca. 180.000 today. In spite of the name, most stories of Micky Maus feature Donald Duck as he is the most popular Disney character in Germany.

Many other titles were/are published by the same company, most notably Die tollsten Geschichten von Donald Duck (1965-today), the Lustige Taschenbuch (1967-today, mainly Italian stories from Topolino and I Classici di Walt Disney; see Donald Duck pocket books

Donald Duck pocket books

The Donald Duck pocket books are a series of paperback-sized publications published in various European countries, featuring Disney comics.- Background :...

, of which both Topolino and Lustiges Taschenbuch are national versions) and many others.

In socialist East Germany (1949–1990) no Disney comics were printed.

Italy

The first Italian Disney comics was published already in the early 1930s, and Federico Pedrocchi wrote and illustrated the first long Disney comic as early as in 1937. Italy is the country of origin for some of the most famous Disney comic artists, including Romano Scarpa

Romano Scarpa

Romano Scarpa was one of the most famous Italian creators of Disney comics.-Biography:Growing up in Venice he developed a particular love for American cartoons and Disney comics, that, at the time, were published in the big format of the Topolino Giornale which was then printing now classic Floyd...

Giovan Battista Carpi was an Italian comics artist. He worked mainly for Disney comics, mostly on books featuring Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck, although he occasionally drew Mickey Mouse as well...

. Italy has introduced several new characters to the Disney universe, including Donald's superhero

Superhero

A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

Arnoldo Mondadori Editore is the biggest publishing company in Italy.-History:Founded by the 18-year-old Arnoldo Mondadori in 1907 to publish the magazine titled Luce!, it soon became an important publisher. Its headquarters are in Milan....

(commonly referred to as just Mondadori) from 1935 until 1988, when Disney Italy took over.

Italy is also behind the digest-sized format used in the long running Donald Duck pocket book series.

PKNA - Paperinik New Adventures is a Disney comic, published in Italy from 14 March 1996 to 20 December 2000, about the new adventures of Paperinik, the superhero created in 1969 by Guido Martina, Elisa Penna and Giovan Battista Carpi, which served as Donald Duck's secret identity.The first issue...

(a comic book version of Paperinik aimed at a slightly older audience), W.I.T.C.H.

W.I.T.C.H.

W.I.T.C.H. is an Italian fantasy/Magical girl comic series created by Elisabetta Gnone, Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa. It tells the story of five teenage girls who are chosen to be the new Guardians of Kandrakar, protectors of the center of the universe from people and creatures who wish...

, and the comics published under the imprint Buena Vista Comics (including the original Monster Allergy

Monster Allergy

Monster Allergy is a comic book series of Disney Italy published by Buena Vista Comics.- History :In 1996, Disney Italy launched a new comic company called PKNA with an unusual format, featuring human characters rather than the typical anthropomorphic animals that Walt Disney used the first thirty...

comic series and a few other titles, such as Kylion and a comic inspired by the Alias

Alias (TV series)

Alias is an American action television series created by J. J. Abrams which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons, from September 30, 2001 to May 22, 2006...

TV show).

The Netherlands

Also the Netherlands (current publisher: Sanoma) has a significant school of Disney comics. The first Dutch Disney comics appeared in 1953. In 1975, Daan Jippes

Daan Jippes

Daan Jippes is a cartoonist, who has worked with Disney and other comics. He is admired by his fans for his lively emulation of Carl Barks' drawing style, and was therefore chosen by Egmont to redraw some old Junior Woodchucks stories from the 1970s, originally written by Carl Barks and drawn by...

became the art director for production of these comics, and created a heavily Barks

Carl Barks

Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...

-inspired line that remains the best-known Dutch Disney style. Donald Duck is the most popular Disney character in the Netherlands, but Sanoma also produces comics starring lesser-known characters such as Li'l Bad Wolf.

France

French-produced stories started in 1952, as a one-pager comic published in each issue of the Le Journal de Mickey

Le Journal de Mickey

Le Journal de Mickey is a French weekly comics magazine established in 1934 and currently published by Disney Hachette Presse. It is centered around the adventures of Mickey Mouse and other Disney figures but contains also other comics. It is credited with "the birth of the modern bande dessinée"...

, drawn by Louis Santel (Tenas) and written by Pierre Fallot. After a few issues, a new series started (Mickey à travers les siècles) and continued up to 1978, drawn almost entirely by Pierre Nicolas and written by Fallot and Jean-Michel le Corfec.

Later in the beginning of the 1980s, a new production started, led by Patrice Valli and Pierre Nicolas as editors with adventures of Mickey Mouse, Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck. Among the best artists, one recalls Claude Marin, or Claude Chebille (known as Gen-Clo), and Italian artists like Giorgio Cavazzano. Some of the best writers were Michel Motti and Pierre-Yves Gabrion. In the late 1980s up to now, an increasing number of Spanish artist from the Comicup studio provided the art, while the writing stayed to French authors.

Egypt

One of the most famous comics in Egypt is definitely Mickey Mouse. In 1958 Mickey Mouse was introduced to the Arab world through another comic book called “Sameer”. Mickey Mouse became so popular in Egypt that he got a comic book with his name, the comic is actually an Arabic counterpart of Donald Duck comics but with Mickey’s name instead. Mickey’s comics in Egypt are licensed by Disney and were published since 1959 by “Dar Al-Hilal” and they were a big hit, but unfortunately Dar Al-Hilal stopped the publication in 2003 because of problems with Disney, luckily the comics were re-released by “Nahdat Masr” in 2004 and the first issues were sold out in less than 8 hours.

Brazil

Editora Abril is a major Brazilian publisher and printing company and one of the biggest media holdings in Southern America. The company was founded in 1950 by Victor Civita in São Paulo and is now part of Grupo Abril....

, national stories have been published since the 50's, with artists like Jorge Kato, hugely inspired by Carl Barks. In the 60's and 70's, Renato Canini drew a number of stories in a style inspired by the popular design of the era. He also developed a universe around José Carioca

José Carioca

José Carioca is a Disney cartoon character drawn as an anthropomorphized parrot from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil . José was created in 1943 for the movie Saludos Amigos as a friend of Donald Duck, described by Time as "a dapper Brazilian parrot, who is as superior to Donald Duck as the Duck was to...

, a very popular character in Brazil. In the 70's and 80's, Abril intensified the production. Except for José Carioca, recurring characters in the production included Daisy

Daisy Duck

Daisy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1940 by Walt Disney Productions as the girlfriend of Donald Duck. Like Donald, Daisy is an anthropomorphic white duck, but has large eyelashes and ruffled tail feathers to suggest a skirt. She is often seen wearing a hair bow, blouse, and shoes...

(turned feminist) and Fethry Duck. Among the most prolific authors, were the writer Arthur Faria Jr. and the artist Irineu Soares Rodriguez.

Initially "O Pato Donald" (Donald Duck title) was published in comic book format, from the # 22 began to be published in digest-sized format.

At the end of the 90's, the Brazilian production ceased, to start up anew for a short while in the 2000s. Recently, only a few stories are produced for special events.

Brazil are also known to have retained many "obscure" characters, largely forgotten elsewhere.

Others

United Kingdom, most known for work appearing during the 1930s-1940s in Mickey Mouse Weekly by Wilfred Haughton, Ronald Neilson, Williem A. Ward and Basil Reynolds.

Egyptian Arabic is the language spoken by contemporary Egyptians.It is more commonly known locally as the Egyptian colloquial language or Egyptian dialect ....

)

Argentina, (Luis Destuet in the 1940s and 50s, some stories reprinted in Brazil and Italy)

Yugoslavia, (Vlastimir Belkic, 1930s)

Other countries produced a few rare stories of their own, Finland (Winnie the Pooh), Belgium (by Louis Santel), Australia (one known gag), Sweden (1930s, remakes of British stories)

Many other countries produced covers and illustrations by various local artists like Spain or Norway.

Japan: many original Disney comics by American or European authors such as Carl Barks, Joaquín Cañizares Sanchez or Flemming Andersen have been entirely re-drawn by Japanese artists for local publication. The Italian, manga-inspired, original W.I.T.C.H.

W.I.T.C.H.

W.I.T.C.H. is an Italian fantasy/Magical girl comic series created by Elisabetta Gnone, Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa. It tells the story of five teenage girls who are chosen to be the new Guardians of Kandrakar, protectors of the center of the universe from people and creatures who wish...

was submitted to the same kind of treatment, giving birth to a Japanese-exclusive adaptation with art by Haruko Iida and published by Kadokawa Shoten. Recently, Japan has produced more original Disney material, such as the manga adaptation of the videogame Kingdom Hearts

Kingdom Hearts

is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 video game console. The first game in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is the result of a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company. The game combines characters and settings from Disney...

is a Japanese manga artist who has worked on several projects, including his adaptation on the popular Kingdom Hearts series.-Manga:* Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories* Kingdom Hearts II* Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days* Legend of Mana...

The Nightmare Before Christmas, often promoted as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, is a 1993 stop motion musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick and produced/co-written by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, a being from "Halloween Town" who opens a portal to...

(originally published by Kodansha, English version by Disney Press).

Chile: the pre-war "Álbum Mickey" series contains various short strips that are possibly locally produced, acc.toInducks, as well as some Zorro stories in the 1970s

Story code

Most Disney comic stories carry a story code. This is a code written on the first page of the story (usually in the panel margin). The first letter of the code usually indicates who produced the story. For instance stories done for the studio program carried story codes that began with the letter S, thus the code for the first Mickey and the Sleuth story ("The Case of the Pea Soup Burglaries") is S 75164.

When a licensee decides they wish to reprint stories originally produced by another licensee and need films or other reproducible materials to facilitate said reprinting, the request is made making reference to the story code. It is the policy of Disney that all licensees must cooperate in the facilitating of such reprinting by providing the reproducible materials at cost. The codes are also a useful tool for indexers, especially those wishing to keep track of the diverse output of the various Disney comics publishers worldwide (c.f. entry on the I.N.D.U.C.K.S. database).

I.N.D.U.C.K.S. Database

The International Network of Disney Universe Comic Knowers and Sources or Inducks is a freely available database aiming to index all Disney Universe comics ever printed in the world. It is an international project which provides indexes of around 90,000 Disney comic publications worldwide. It is...

is a freely available database aiming to index all Disney comics ever printed in the world. The project started in 1992; today, the database lists Disney publication, stories, characters, authors, and much more. Most people use the I.N.D.U.C.K.S. through a search engine, browser and website abbreviated COA, which is daily updated based on I.N.D.U.C.K.S. data, and is available in a dozen languages.

Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...

Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

Uncle Scrooge is a comic book with the stingy Scrooge McDuck "the richest duck in the world" as the main character. The series also featured Donald Duck and his nephews as supporting characters. The first 70 issues mostly consisted of stories written and drawn by Carl Barks, the creator of Scrooge...

Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

)

The Beagle Boys (also under name "The Beagle Boys and The Beagle Brats")

Professor Ludwig von Drake is one of Walt Disney's cartoon and comic book characters. He was first introduced on September 24, 1961, as the presenter in the cartoon An Adventure in Color, part of the first show of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on NBC...

Junior Woodchucks are the Scouting organization to which Huey, Dewey, and Louie belong. They have a uniform with a coonskin cap. The Junior Woodchucks were created by Carl Barks in 1951, in the story "Operation St. Bernhard"...

Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck are a trio of fictional, anthropomorphic ducks who appear in animated cartoons and comic books published by the Walt Disney Company. Identical triplets, the three are Donald Duck's nephews. Huey, Dewey, and Louie were created by Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro, and first...

Daisy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1940 by Walt Disney Productions as the girlfriend of Donald Duck. Like Donald, Daisy is an anthropomorphic white duck, but has large eyelashes and ruffled tail feathers to suggest a skirt. She is often seen wearing a hair bow, blouse, and shoes...